关键词: 荣府, 主子, 奴才, 半奴半主

Abstract: Stewards, maternal aunts, wet nurses, main servant girls have special positions in Rong Mansion. In order to maintain a luxurious life and keep it in order, the masters treat them well and endow them with certain rights. They put on airs as if they were masters in front of inferiors, but in fact they are semi-slaves with no personal freedom. These characters have not aroused much attention in the academic circle, for they are not main characters in The Red Mansion Dream. However, they play important roles in the development of the story line and even in the occurrence as well as the solution of conflicts. This paper analyzes the nature, roles and changes of these characters by regarding them as a group based on the descriptions in the novel.

Key words: Rong Mansion, masters, slaves, semi-slavery